Five Benefits of Meditation During Pregnancy

When I became pregnant, my doctor never spoke to me about how stress could affect the health of my growing baby. Research shows that high levels of stress and anxiety increase risk factors during pregnancy, and by keeping stress levels low, you can give your baby a better environment in which to grow (1). Practicing regular meditation and mindfulness during pregnancy can significantly reduce stress (2)

I never knew how important it was for the development of your baby to carry to term until I became pregnant myself. When I learned the benefits of a full-term pregnancy and read about how a study that explored preterm birth found that women who participated in a mindfulness training program were 50% less likely to give birth early than women with no mindfulness education(3), I was floored. Knowing this, made me up my meditation practice in my third trimester, and encouraged me to share the benefits of meditations with a lot of my friends who were pregnant with twins and had a higher chance of delivering pre-term.

The pain and uncertainty of giving birth was without a doubt on my mind throughout my entire pregnancy. However, knowing that a study of a group of people who attended a four-day mindfulness meditation training found that they were able to decrease the intensity of a painful stimulus by 40 percent (4) helped me to have more confidence that meditation would support me during labor.

When my doctor shared with me that I was more likely to get sick during pregnancy I was constantly worried about catching a cold, but because meditation enhances the body’s immune function (5), I knew I was taking big steps towards reducing my chances of contracting a virus.

One of the first things that made me realize how much my thoughts were affecting me was my inability to fall or stay asleep while pregnant. When I started meditating, I was shocked to see an almost immediate change in the quality of my sleep, but when I learned that studies have shown that individuals who practice meditation experience higher quality sleep than non-meditators (6), I knew that meditation was playing a key role in me getting better rest at night.